Improvement in purifying illuminating-gases



new arm,

WILLIAM H. ST. JOHN I AND rerun OARTWRIGHT, or NEW YORK, N. Y.

Letters Patent No. 109,268, am November 15, 1870.

lMPROVEMENT IN PURIFVING lLLUMlNATlNG-GASES.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and part of the same.

,We, WILLIAM H. ST. JOHN and Parse (hurr- WRIGHT, both of the city,county, and State of New York, have discovered and invented a new Methodof Purifying Illuminating-Gas,-of which the following isa specification,

This invention is based on the fact that oxide of iron, as ordinarilyemployed, soon becomes exhausted, owing to its texture andcoznlition.

Aiter numerous and long-continued experiments, we hare discovered thatwhen oxide of iron, in the form known as amorphous granular limonite,and which occurs native on Staten Island, in the State of New York,isused, it is not subject to this objectiou.

Purifiers charged with this material remain in operation for a farlonger period, and the purification of the gas is much more perfect andreliable.

The nature of our invention consists in the using, for charginggas-purifiers, either alone or in admixture with other matcrir ls, of ac ertaiu granular ocher-like mineral, which isfouud in rocks, consideredof mesoaoic or secondary age, on Staten Island.

This-material is peculiar both in its chemicalcomposition and in itsmechanical structure. Chemically it is composed almost altogether of thespecies of mineral known as limonitc, fourteen per cent. of combinedwater. it is both granular: and amorphous, soft and highly porous.

It is in consequence of this altogether peculiar com-. binat-ion ofproperties that our experiments, made very laboriously upon a greatnumber of native oxides of iron, have proved this Staten Island speciesto surpass, to a high degree, all others in the convenience and rapidityof its action in gas-purification.

Bog ores and ochers, or limnates of iron, in consequence of theircompactness and their impurities, we

containing from twelve to Mechanically primary rocks or crystallineschists, as those of Saliscomposed of the species tnrgite, containingbut about five per cent. of water, and which are very hard and compact,we find to be very inferior to the Staten Island species.

Other advantages of the Staten Isianrt minemtniay he stated as follows:

In the charging of purifiers we find it unnecessary to crush or sift thecrude minerah'because, after revivilication in the air and themanipulations attendant thereon, the lumps all fall down to agranularform.

turnings, or filings, according to Claim;

\Ve claim as our inventionilluminating-gas, the sameco'nsistiug intreatingthe U same with oxide of iron, having the texture andcomposition above set forth.

' WM. H. ST. JOHN.

- PETER OABTWBIGHT Witnesses: I

.Rlenn. W. Mom,

' I Tune. M. Tu'mum.

find almost inert in comparison, and the ores of the.

bury, in Connecticut, and the like, which are largely We prefer usually,however, to mix it before use with iron borings,

our former patentof April 7, 1868, No. 76,544. .In-

all cases we moisten the material with water beforev The improvedprocess herein described for purifying

